Here’s the trouble for Donald Trump: whenever he handpicks a competent and honest person to do his personal bidding, whether it be FBI Director Christopher Wray or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, it turns out Trump can’t get that person to do his bidding. This is no surprise to most of us; incorruptible people tend not to be corruptible. Trump’s narcissism led him to believe he could convince these types to illegally protect him from his scandals, and he’s learned the hard way that it just doesn’t work like that. So instead he’s relying on idiots.

Trump is at that stage where his scandals are enveloping him, he’s going to have to answer for them soon, and his historic unpopularity means he has no way to shield himself from the fallout. He’s down to his last few swings when it comes to trying to derail the investigations into his crimes. All you really need to know is that Trump’s big finale involves relying on a memo that Devin Nunes wrote about Carter Page. These two guys are Grade-A idiots. This gambit has blown up on him spectacularly, and yet he’s still uninterested in bailing out of it.

Various major media outlets have reported that everyone from Trump’s DOJ legal minds to Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly have told him that the memo isn’t going to score him any points if he releases it. Trump’s own people have told the media that they think the memo is a “dud” because they’re trying to tamp down the public’s expectations for it.

Everyone around Donald Trump is trying to steer him toward not releasing this memo. Sure, he’ll take heat for scuttling it after all this hype. But releasing it would be even worse. His dwindling political muscle means that he might only get one more shot at derailing the investigation. He’s insisting on choosing this memo for his potentially final swing. Once it fails, he’ll have to sit there and do nothing as the investigation finishes him off. Trump chose poorly. He blew it.